Slots in Blockchain: Key Elements of Sharding

Slot is the smallest period of time in the Cardano blockchain.

What is a slot?

In a blockchain, A slot is the shortest period of time that can be held in a slot. Duration of the Cardano slot is 1 second. In each slot, there is a leader who has the right to create one of the block for that slot and may not do so. When the slot leader is not creating a block, there are two consequences: first, no one in that game creates an block; second, the next player will be selected from other pools.

Cardano uses a system of epochs and slots to confirm a bet. Each Cardano epoch has slots that consist of one second. Currently, a Cardano epoch includes 432,000 slots (5 days). In the Byron era, which was the genesis of Cardano and has now been replaced by the Shelley mainnet, there were 21,600 slots per era and one slot leader per slot. The Shelley era has 20 times as many slots per era, but only one in five slots has a slot leader.

Each slot is filled with one of the blocks, which are created by the leaders. The reason for this is that some blocks are created in random order and do not make sure that all the slots will be full with one block. It is called “empty” when there is no block in the slot.

Slots can occur when no one wins the lead in that slot and so it simply gives up a block. They also appear naturally because of network latency or simply because network members cannot quickly recognize winning blocks.

It is known that the algorithm, installed in ouroboros praos Ouroboros protocol, on previous IOHK team protocols, creates every block at random. Randomly, the slot leader randomly chooses a time interval (time interval) to produce the “block”. So no two leaders can act simultaneously, and all blocks are creating independently of them.

A little about Cardano

The cardano platform is a blockchain platform with its own control token, Ada. In 2014, Charles Hoskinson left the company to found Cardano. The project was created by Charles Hoskinson co-founder of “Ethereum”, who left the company in 2014 to find Cardano.

The creator of the Scalable and Secure Cryptocurrency, Cardano set out to create an easy-to-use kind of cryptocurrency that could be used in the real world. The most important innovation that gives Cardano an advantage over other companies is its use of the unique layer architecture. As other blockchains (e.g)., the management layer has all transfer and account balance data, it is similar to other blockchains (e.g) “Bitcoin” – bitcoin, cryptocurrency. Based on the technology layer, the technology layer is run smart contracts and processes financial settlement data for credit and insurance.

The Cardano team has plans for the future – ADA wants to become an accepted method of payment, so they are working with companies around the world to achieve this goal. They also plan to launch sidechains – separate blockchains to interact with the main chain to be faster and more flexible